BORING HAT YAI
Although Hat Yai is a 'boring assed town' and I've not found anything worth seeing I am going to try to stick around for at least a couple more days.
By doing this (and sucking down water instead of stuff I'd rather be drinking) I am working on saving up some money for a brief journey back to Korea.
I do miss Korean food.
Unfortunately, getting on to the military base I'd once served on (Camp Casey - no relation to Chris Casey that I know of) would be harder than cleaning with grease.
Despite heading directly for KL now, it is not a good time to head to Korea. It gets crazy cold there in the winter and I'd rather be there when it isn't.
TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAME STUFF
This was written by David H. who is a lieutenant in the police force. It's an excellent talk about real life cops vs game police.
Nobody wants to experience a cop campaign. Players want to play Sherlock Holmes, not Inspector Lestrade. Or Batman rather than Commissioner Gordon. Exciting, unusual, oddly talented characters taking unreasonable risks to solve puzzles.
Holmes credited Lestrade for his meticulous, businesslike pursuit of detail, which will solve all but the most quirky crimes.
Imagine this role playing session:
Two player detectives arrive at the scene of what looks like a murder staged to appear as if a vampire was involved. Vampires are not thought to be real in the campaign setting. There's a fresh corpse at the scene, but also a corpse that's been dead for weeks.
They role play interviews with witnesses and poke around the scene, locating some evidence.
There's no immediate lead to follow, and they need to wait for forensic evidence to be processed. There's another address they check for a person of interest, the victim's brother, but no one answers at the door. They don't have enough for a search warrant.
Back at the office there are two phone messages related to a check fraud case and a missing runaway. Role play those conversations, and call the bank. Role pay that conversation. Type up a subpoena for records and walk over to court to get the judge to sign it. The other detective needs to call the mother involved in a child sex crime case that is most likely false, part of a custody dispute. Role play that conversation.
Tomorrow morning one detective has a child forensic interview set up for that child. He needs to attend. The other detective has court on an embezzlement case. After role playing watching the forensic interview and testifying at an evidentiary hearing, they plan to go back to the house of the person of interest mentioned above and try again. While out, they receive a phone message identifying the workplace of the person of interest. They plan to go there before going to his house. That turns out to be a bad lead. He quit last year, but he might work at a similar place across town. They decide to call that place and verify before making the trip. He does work there, but he took vacation days. Possibly a trip to Vegas. Suspicious. They head for his house. Not home.
It turns out there is now a good lead on the missing runaway, so they decide to try his friend's house before going home for the night. Role play parenting the runaway. He makes obviously false accusations of abuse against his parents, but unfortunately his friend's mom called Child Protective Services. There's a CPS social worker involved now. Role play the conversation with CPS. That worker is a highly motivated child advocate, and does not share your view that the complaint is false.
Another game session next weekend?
Sherlock always acted on his own initiative, occasionally with one dedicated partner. Ditto for Batman. And always focusing on one case to completion. No supervision. No rules other than self-imposed. No one else interested or even aware of the investigation.
Police detectives experience the opposite in every detail. Large teams working on individual aspects of a case. Multiple cases, many of which remain open for extended periods. Close supervision. A Byzantine system of rules. Multiple interested parties and systematic transparency.
GIVE ME LIQUOR, FOREIGNER!
[Yes, it didn't take me long to get to use that one. Thanks again to Mathias M. for that blog tag line.]
So I'm out doing my laundry. By that, I mean 'sitting on my ass, waiting for the machines to get done doing my laundry'.
One of the locals says "Do you drink whiskey?"
I find myself doing the sidelong look with the faint smile. "Why yes. Yes I do."
Was really, really hoping they wanted to play the 'let's get the fat foreigner stupid drunk' game. I've not yet met anyone from Asia I couldn't out drink. Body mass is a plus in that, a huge huge minus in finding any clothing that fits. Even shoes. Tiny, tiny people.
They didn't end up playing that ever fun game with me but I was able to buy shots of whisky (that they added way too much water and ice to) for 20 baht each. That's about 2/3 of a dollar - 66 cents each. Not a bad deal.
Yes, they got very chatty very quick. Unfortunately, not great English skills and no other languages I could follow - but it was a nice time.
OTHER TIME WASTERS (COMPUTER GAMES)
Logan's scorecard - games bought on Steam.
First, I'd like to thank the people who managed to convince me Steam isn't the devil. It's working out find and will even be useful when my computer eventually gets stolen, eaten, raped or broken.
The success rate of all the games I have on Steam is easily measured in how much time they have sucked away from Logan. Some call it 'the suck zone'. The more time they sucked, the less the game sucked.
Although I'm burned out on all these games currently, here's how they've done:
Age of Empires II: 17 hours
Assassin's Creed: 52 minutes (fail)
Borderlands 2: 52 hours (some good times with TJ on this one)
Elder Scrolls IV: 79 hours
Elder Scrolls V: 122 hours
Fallout 3: 28 hours
Fallout: New Vegas: 76 hours
Goat Simulator: 30 minutes (fail)
Civilization III: 219 hours (wow)
Spore: 27 hours
Wow.
The thing I enjoyed most about many of these games is that I could kill some or all of the sound, play them and listen to my audio books. Something to do with my hands while I listen to a book. Hard to find games like that.
DIETARY CHANGES IN DIFFERENT LANDS
It's amazing how much my dining habits change in each country I go to.
When I was in Cambodia, I pretty much camped out at Viva, the Mexican restaurant. Finding decent Mexican food without SE Asia is rare. I'd have a small meal there in the morning then a larger meal in the evenings, often washing it down with a 'bucket' (actually a decent sized glass) of margaritas. During the evening, I would drink a third or half bottle of hard alcohol and during the course of the day have 0-3 beers.
In Thailand over the last eleven or so days, I've had one beer (total) and three small shots of whiskey mixed with a whole lot of water. That's how they drink it here for whatever reason. My two meals a day are composed of a handful of white rice and less than a half a handful of some sort of meat. Sometimes identifiable. My big sin here is Ovaltine. Not even kidding. It's weird. Suspect the Christmas movie with the Red Ryder BB gun may have done some weird programming on my brain. Find myself drinking about three of those fuckers a day now. They seem to make me happy. Pretty sure they just make it from powder but it is a three dollar a day habit that replaces alcohol in this country for whatever reason.
Although Hat Yai is a 'boring assed town' and I've not found anything worth seeing I am going to try to stick around for at least a couple more days.
By doing this (and sucking down water instead of stuff I'd rather be drinking) I am working on saving up some money for a brief journey back to Korea.
I do miss Korean food.
Unfortunately, getting on to the military base I'd once served on (Camp Casey - no relation to Chris Casey that I know of) would be harder than cleaning with grease.
Despite heading directly for KL now, it is not a good time to head to Korea. It gets crazy cold there in the winter and I'd rather be there when it isn't.
TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAME STUFF
This was written by David H. who is a lieutenant in the police force. It's an excellent talk about real life cops vs game police.
Nobody wants to experience a cop campaign. Players want to play Sherlock Holmes, not Inspector Lestrade. Or Batman rather than Commissioner Gordon. Exciting, unusual, oddly talented characters taking unreasonable risks to solve puzzles.
Holmes credited Lestrade for his meticulous, businesslike pursuit of detail, which will solve all but the most quirky crimes.
Imagine this role playing session:
Two player detectives arrive at the scene of what looks like a murder staged to appear as if a vampire was involved. Vampires are not thought to be real in the campaign setting. There's a fresh corpse at the scene, but also a corpse that's been dead for weeks.
They role play interviews with witnesses and poke around the scene, locating some evidence.
There's no immediate lead to follow, and they need to wait for forensic evidence to be processed. There's another address they check for a person of interest, the victim's brother, but no one answers at the door. They don't have enough for a search warrant.
Back at the office there are two phone messages related to a check fraud case and a missing runaway. Role play those conversations, and call the bank. Role pay that conversation. Type up a subpoena for records and walk over to court to get the judge to sign it. The other detective needs to call the mother involved in a child sex crime case that is most likely false, part of a custody dispute. Role play that conversation.
Tomorrow morning one detective has a child forensic interview set up for that child. He needs to attend. The other detective has court on an embezzlement case. After role playing watching the forensic interview and testifying at an evidentiary hearing, they plan to go back to the house of the person of interest mentioned above and try again. While out, they receive a phone message identifying the workplace of the person of interest. They plan to go there before going to his house. That turns out to be a bad lead. He quit last year, but he might work at a similar place across town. They decide to call that place and verify before making the trip. He does work there, but he took vacation days. Possibly a trip to Vegas. Suspicious. They head for his house. Not home.
It turns out there is now a good lead on the missing runaway, so they decide to try his friend's house before going home for the night. Role play parenting the runaway. He makes obviously false accusations of abuse against his parents, but unfortunately his friend's mom called Child Protective Services. There's a CPS social worker involved now. Role play the conversation with CPS. That worker is a highly motivated child advocate, and does not share your view that the complaint is false.
Another game session next weekend?
Sherlock always acted on his own initiative, occasionally with one dedicated partner. Ditto for Batman. And always focusing on one case to completion. No supervision. No rules other than self-imposed. No one else interested or even aware of the investigation.
Police detectives experience the opposite in every detail. Large teams working on individual aspects of a case. Multiple cases, many of which remain open for extended periods. Close supervision. A Byzantine system of rules. Multiple interested parties and systematic transparency.
GIVE ME LIQUOR, FOREIGNER!
[Yes, it didn't take me long to get to use that one. Thanks again to Mathias M. for that blog tag line.]
So I'm out doing my laundry. By that, I mean 'sitting on my ass, waiting for the machines to get done doing my laundry'.
One of the locals says "Do you drink whiskey?"
I find myself doing the sidelong look with the faint smile. "Why yes. Yes I do."
Was really, really hoping they wanted to play the 'let's get the fat foreigner stupid drunk' game. I've not yet met anyone from Asia I couldn't out drink. Body mass is a plus in that, a huge huge minus in finding any clothing that fits. Even shoes. Tiny, tiny people.
They didn't end up playing that ever fun game with me but I was able to buy shots of whisky (that they added way too much water and ice to) for 20 baht each. That's about 2/3 of a dollar - 66 cents each. Not a bad deal.
Yes, they got very chatty very quick. Unfortunately, not great English skills and no other languages I could follow - but it was a nice time.
OTHER TIME WASTERS (COMPUTER GAMES)
Logan's scorecard - games bought on Steam.
First, I'd like to thank the people who managed to convince me Steam isn't the devil. It's working out find and will even be useful when my computer eventually gets stolen, eaten, raped or broken.
The success rate of all the games I have on Steam is easily measured in how much time they have sucked away from Logan. Some call it 'the suck zone'. The more time they sucked, the less the game sucked.
Although I'm burned out on all these games currently, here's how they've done:
Age of Empires II: 17 hours
Assassin's Creed: 52 minutes (fail)
Borderlands 2: 52 hours (some good times with TJ on this one)
Elder Scrolls IV: 79 hours
Elder Scrolls V: 122 hours
Fallout 3: 28 hours
Fallout: New Vegas: 76 hours
Goat Simulator: 30 minutes (fail)
Civilization III: 219 hours (wow)
Spore: 27 hours
Wow.
The thing I enjoyed most about many of these games is that I could kill some or all of the sound, play them and listen to my audio books. Something to do with my hands while I listen to a book. Hard to find games like that.
DIETARY CHANGES IN DIFFERENT LANDS
It's amazing how much my dining habits change in each country I go to.
When I was in Cambodia, I pretty much camped out at Viva, the Mexican restaurant. Finding decent Mexican food without SE Asia is rare. I'd have a small meal there in the morning then a larger meal in the evenings, often washing it down with a 'bucket' (actually a decent sized glass) of margaritas. During the evening, I would drink a third or half bottle of hard alcohol and during the course of the day have 0-3 beers.
In Thailand over the last eleven or so days, I've had one beer (total) and three small shots of whiskey mixed with a whole lot of water. That's how they drink it here for whatever reason. My two meals a day are composed of a handful of white rice and less than a half a handful of some sort of meat. Sometimes identifiable. My big sin here is Ovaltine. Not even kidding. It's weird. Suspect the Christmas movie with the Red Ryder BB gun may have done some weird programming on my brain. Find myself drinking about three of those fuckers a day now. They seem to make me happy. Pretty sure they just make it from powder but it is a three dollar a day habit that replaces alcohol in this country for whatever reason.
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